Today, the fundamental concern for most of us is food security. Food is the most indispensable & elementary requirement of a human being. But sorry to say it is not the problem # 01 for the think tanks of this world. They have other fields to play their game. The major motive as far as I could imagine for the lack of focus on this issue is that apparently most of the superpowers are free of this problem & it seems that they have this strategy regarding developing countries of not providing them the opportunities to come out of this problem by one way or the other. But the issue is not to argue the man-killing policies of super powers rather to find a solution, an enduring & steadfast solution, which can offer security of food to this generation & to the next ones.
So in essence what is the major problem? Principally what the food security is? Is it the dilemma of few countries? I don’t think so. Food security is a universal crisis not only for Africans and Asian but also for Europeans and Americans especially the South American countries e.g. Brazil, Argentina etc. The key for this problem is the less utilization of resources in most of the countries. Even though we think that now is the time of technology but in fact this technology is not well disseminated right through the world. We frequently see different inventions but most of them are not cost-effectively viable for a small scale use. There are many techniques developed in the field of agriculture but these technologies regrettably are not available to low class peasants even not in the developed countries.
Another big problem is the dependence on single or 2 members of a family. This case is not common in developed countries but in Asia especially this is a big problem. Most of the families on average consists of 6 members including husband and his spouse and in most of the cases only husband is the earning hand of the family especially when the children are young and in addition he has to afford good services for his parents unless they have strong and rich background or they were public servants and have enough pension to spend their lives, but this is not certain for every one. So it becomes very difficult for such a person to provide food security to his family. So we can crack this trouble by increasing the helping hands in the family. May be house wife could do some house business or some thing else.
A bigger problem in most of the countries and especially in our country is that most of the farmers are tenants. They are not getting the fruit of their hard work. They work mostly 14-15 hours a day and could utmost get enough to eat. Governments should introduce land reforms and some share, may be not equally to landlords, to these small farmers so they can produce more not only enough for their families but also enough to sell in the market. But another problem is that in Pakistan most of the farmers just produce crop for their family needs, even if they have land, they don’t bother to grow more by saying that this is enough for me. But they don’t understand that not utilizing the land to its full extent is destructive may be not for them but for those who are depending on their land. So we need to instruct our farmers on these issues.
According to a research, one out of 6 people do not have enough to eat and it predicts that as the world’s population and food demand is increasing, we will require 60% more food by 2050.To meet these requirements we will have to take some bold and quick steps. Following are some of the basic steps which can improve the food security by helping small scale farmers to provide them improved technologies and management practices.
If the small farmers are being equipped with better technologies, May not with the best ones, it can be helpful to bring more resilience in crops, which consequently increases the yield. More ever, by using better techniques the utility of natural resources like water, land & chemicals could be maximized.
By supporting scientific innovations & technology.
By supporting it in agriculture & nutrition we can meet the challenge of more food with less area & water.
By the interest of developed countries.
These countries should support the small ones, not by giving them donations and funds, rather by having trade with them. They should give them the technology and should provide them access to global food markets, where they can get more profit and are to make more foreign exchange which will definitely be helpful for their dwindling economies. If the economy of a country is stable then it is easier for her to provide basic life necessities to their people.
If we follow these steps, may be some of them are hard to, but to secure a better present and future for this world we have to think broadly, not just for ourselves and this country but for this whole world.
